by Joshua Cook
Marcus stood. “Enough talking. Want to see the place? It’s not much, at least what we use of it, but it’s important.”
Cendan nodded. The magnet answer was rather weak, but he’d already committed to seeing a bit more where this all went to “How much do I owe for the noodles, Jasmine?”
“Nothing! Regardless of you joining us, I would have covered it anyway, just because you actually tried something new.” Jasmine slapped him on the shoulder. She was still attractive, but the thrill of want and desire, wasn’t there for Cendan anymore.
“Come.” Marcus walked towards the rear of the place and out the back. He unlocked the large metal door that was a bit farther down the back wall. In the dim light, Cendan saw steps leading down into the darkness. Cendan hesitated. Did he really want to follow these people down into a basement? In the dark? The only reason he was even considering it was the fact that Jasmine was there.
“Jasmine, this is crazy, you know that?” Cendan asked. “Seriously, what the hell?”
“Look, Cendan,” Jasmine replied. “I know it’s a hell of a lot to absorb. You’ve just been told something that changes pretty much everything you thought was real. Most people would freak out. And you, well… I know you. Come on, let us show you… let me show you something incredible.”
Cendan studied her face in the faint light that Sal’s globe gave off. He looked for some trace, some slight hint that this was all some elaborate ruse. But it wasn’t there—she truly believed this. With a silent plea to his inner voice demanding that he leave, he nodded to Jasmine in acceptance.
Chapter Three
Sal raised his focus up, and the light in it got brighter. Cendan couldn’t help thinking that it seemed like magic, regardless of what they all said. The steps started off as hollow metal, and their footsteps made echoes in the dark as they descended. Above them, their waiter had followed them out and was closing the door behind them, flashing a thumbs-up to Cendan when he saw him watching. Soon, the only light in the darkness came from Sal’s focus, which he held high as they continued.
“Oh and don’t let Sal corner you with his theories on what’s real or not.” Marcus chuckled. “He’s got this thing about man-made objects not being real, societal constructs and the like. Something like that.”
“Dude,” Sal said, “the natural world is real. The world people created? Money, entertainment, politics? All of that only has meaning because we say it has meaning. It’s not real. If we all vanished tomorrow, the grass wouldn’t give a damn about the balance of your checkbook.” Cendan detected humor in his voice—must be a long-standing difference of opinion.
“I’ll remember that the next time I ask you to pay for something,” Jasmine retorted. “For now, can we just open the door and show our new member what we call home?” Jasmine took out her red orchid as Marcus rubbed his ring.
Cendan paused. What if this was all an elaborate practical joke, and this was the moment of the jump scare? The others would fall down, laughing and pointing at him in ridicule. But time passed, and that didn’t happen.
The metal had ended, and the steps were now stone or concrete. In the near-dark conditions, he couldn’t see which—he couldn’t see much of anything.
Suddenly, the three others stopped, raised their foci up in unison. There was an audible crack and a bright, warm light spilled out. Quietly they entered the light filled door that Cendan had just seen appear in front of him. Following them, he felt a slight stretching feeling, almost as if he had been quickly accelerated and stopped faster than he could register it.
No one said or did anything, however, except to remove coats and various over-clothes. Marcus finally turned to him, and with some theatrical flair, welcomed him to the Headquarters of the Bridgefinders as he pushed open the large door in front of him.
Cendan stood for a moment, taking it in. Before him stood the largest carving of the world, he’d ever seen. A wooden relief map stood before him, and to his eyes appeared to almost move and shimmer with changes. His hand reached out to it, and a feeling of tension pushed back on his fingertips, soft at first, but stronger as he held his hand there.
“You asked how we knew where Bridges formed. This is how,” Marcus said. “This map is very old and very powerful. It’s made of wood from the Echo World. Not sure how it got here, but a maker, one that predated Oakheart, made it. His name is lost to us as well. So we just call him the mapmaker. He created this.”
“When a Bridge forms, the map grows a leaf in the general area where it is—a single green leaf. If a creature comes through in that same place, a flower bud appears.” Marcus brushed against the map with his hands, not appearing to feel the same resistance that Cendan did. “Sadly, it doesn’t show Grellnot at all. One reason we’ve lost so many people to that damn creature.”
Cendan tried to touch the map, but once again, it was as if he was trying to push through a heavy gel. The closer he got, the more resistance he felt. He found himself unwilling to say anything about it though as if some small voice in him felt guarded against saying too much.
Jasmine held her focus. “Follow me, and we’ll get you and your focus set up to help us.” She quickly set a brisk pace, walking through a door with a metal and gear motif on it. “You of all people will get a kick out of this, Cendan. You know we mentioned a machine? One that was broken that could have kept the barrier strong?”
Cendan nodded. He was having trouble concentrating on Jasmine’s words because he kept hearing a high-pitched buzz, like a mosquito, though he didn’t see any flying pests around. The hallway they were in ended at a metal door with hammer marks on it as if it had been forged by hand.
“In here is the EVA—the machine that at least focuses most of the Bridges here, and at one time kept the barrier strong. It’s a bewildering thing to study, but I figure with your love of systems, you would have some professional interest at least.”
She motioned for Cendan to open the door. He stepped forward and pushed it open. It swung open to a platform. Stepping forward, Cendan felt as though he were entering the heart of some giant mechanical beast. He was surrounded by pipes, gears, flywheels, and valves—all of it a giant thrumming system. Some parts of it seemed totally pristine, but in sections here and there, large blacked-out areas showed, and in others ripped, and shredded metal was apparent. Nothing was rusted or aged in appearance, which just made the burned and blacked sections stick out that much more.
Glass pipes were mixed in, carrying around multiple different colors of liquid. All the metal pipes appeared to be brass or bronze though he spied a flash of silver as he craned his head around trying to make sense of it. It was the most single insane and beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed. The sheet complexity of it belied that underneath the damage lay a clear system, a purpose overlaying it all. Was this what a great artist felt when they saw the Sistine Chapel? Awe gripped Cendan as he tried to absorb what he was seeing.
Jasmine’s voice cut through his thoughts. “I see I was right. Your jaw actually just dropped.”
“This is... fascinating,” Cendan said, “but it’s sad to see it in this state. No one can fix it?”
Jasmine sighed. “Without being a Maker, no. We’ve all tried off and on—I’m sure you will as well—but without the maker talent, it’s impossible to know how to get it going again. The records we have say it used to talk to the Bridgefinders, give advice and information. It had links to the map as well, and it even tell you what creatures were coming through. Now the only thing it does is mostly keep the Bridges that form from cropping up all over the place.”
Cendan was awed by the machine. He had to try to do something to make it work, even if they all said it took a maker to do it. The buzzing sound he had heard before was gone now, replaced by the sound of a soft thrumming with a vibration he felt in his bones.
“Come with me, let’s get your focus set up to help strengthen things. We can show you where you can crash here, if need be.” Jasmine beckoned through a small side
door that Cendan hadn’t noticed before because all his attention had been focused on this machine—this EVA, according to Jasmine. He turned to follow her and stopped cold. The buzzing was back, but now instead of being annoying, there were words. Two words, laced together in the buzzing whine: Help me…
Cendan’s mind whirled. Hadn’t she just said that it couldn’t talk anymore? This, plus what had happened with the map earlier, really confused him and made him doubt he truly understood what was going on.
“Cendan! You coming?” Jasmine’s voice came from the hallway past the small door. Keeping his confusion to himself, he followed after her, with a glance behind him at the glorious system. He thought back to the whine, I will, and felt foolish for doing so. Still, he swore that a brief feeling of happiness washed over him when he responded.
The hallways in this place were distinctly strange. Every single one was a long arch, and each door was, as well. There were no square corners, except where the walls met the floor. There were no windows, either, just lights placed regularly around the place. No two doors were alike, either—as they walked, they passed doors with massively different looks and sizes. Some were carved, some were painted, some were made of wood, some were metal, and even a few were made of stone. There was no semblance of organization, and normally, that would have driven him crazy. It wasn’t orderly or structured.
Oddly enough, though, he felt comforted. It was very real, very present. Strange, that. Finally, they came to a door with glass globes embedded in the wood. Three of them were illuminated—one red, one orange, and one green. The rest were dark, reflecting the lights on the hallways as though there were small eyes in each one.
Jasmine pushed the door open and Cendan followed her inside. The room was enormous. Lifting his head up, Cendan noted that he couldn’t see the ceiling at all. They weren’t really underneath the Red Orchid restaurant—they were elsewhere. Where this elsewhere was, though, was yet another question in the large and growing list in his head. Seating was everywhere in the room, but most was disused, with dust settled in various corners. As with everything else there, even the chairs were all different from each other. Some were ornate and cumbersome, others were as simple as a small stool. Marcus and Sal were there, near the very front with their backs to the door. Cendan couldn’t see what they were doing nor hear the conversation they were having.
As they approached, Marcus turned around and gave them a nod. He looked as solemn as ever. Cendan saw what they had been studying. On the wall before them, at an angle, were depressions and divots of different sizes and depths, but laid out in a district pattern, one of the few patterns that had been built into the place. Two of the divots held Marcus’s ring and Sal’s globe. Saying nothing, Jasmine pulled out her wooden orchid and placed it in another divot.
“This is the barrier room.” Marcus said. “Here is where our foci stay to help keep the barrier up. It’s where your key will stay as well, unless we are out in the field. As you can see, there used to be more here, far more. But as we’ve been beaten or killed, the foci are taken or destroyed. We are what is left. This is the main reason we need you, Cendan. Even one person can help when we are so few now.”
“Placing your focus here will be an unsettling experience the first time,” Sal said. “When a focus is first put here in the pattern, some Bridgefinders see visions, or feel warped in nature. It passes quickly, but be aware that that may happen.”
“By doing this act, you will be one of us forever,” Jasmine said. “Your life will be two-fold—one, the life you held before today; the other, this one. Your name will be inscribed in our records, and forever more, you will be Cendan Key, Bridgefinder. When you think you’re ready, place your key in the pattern.”
Cendan nodded. But where to put the Key? Studying the board, he could see they had all placed their foci in different places. Each was a straight line from the other, not intersecting an empty place in the board. The others were no help. Finally, his eyes found the spot in the middle of the pattern where his key should go.
Cendan braced himself as he removed the key from his pocket. The metal felt warm, ready to be used. Gently, he placed the key into the divot and froze. The wrenching he felt when he entered this place was back, but far stronger, as though he had moved very far this time. Taking a moment to let the feeling overtake him, he realized he was alone now, and the room was quite different.
The chairs, before haphazard and dirty, were in a pattern as well, and clean. The barrier room itself was brighter, with a feeling of purpose in the air. The board was full of foci! Every divot was taken—it all seemed to glow and almost sparkle to his eyes.
What had happened? Quickly, he realized that he had been transported, to the past—or at least, a vision of the past. It was quiet, though, still. If he listened, he could hear faint music in the background, some kind of old music. A violin maybe? Fiddle?
Suddenly, a sound went off, a foghorn loud in both tone and volume that shook his mind and body. Again it sounded, louder this time. Now, he heard voices, people shouting, yells of anger and rage. The door to the barrier room flew open, and standing there was a creature, a creature that Cendan had never seen anything like.
The creature before him was tall and thin, with ears that hung low. It was just wrong. Its proportions were out of line—parts were stretched out, as though someone had pulled an arm or leg, then left it and it had never snapped back. Black, beady eyes jumped around the room. Its breathing was ragged as though it had been running. Whatever it was wearing for clothing smoldered slightly, and he could see blotches of oil and colorful liquids staining the material. This was the creature that had wrecked that wonderful machine he had seen earlier. This was the destroyer of the EVA.
The shouts in the hallway got closer, louder, and the creature hunched down, maybe preparing to escape. A low yowling noise came from its throat at the sight of all the foci in front of it, but it stood still. Could it see Cendan, or was he just watching something, a recording of the past?
At that moment, a man burst into the room, swearing loudly. “Valock! You creature from the damnedest pits of hell. What have you done to my machine?” This man before Cendan must have been the maker, then, the one who had done so much and paid so high a price. Uncoiling a large rope with a hook from his side, the man began swinging the hook end. “You will pay for your destruction this night, foul thing.” The man threw the hook, and it wrapped around the legs of the creature—the Valock, as the man had called it.
Instead of cowering or trying to escape, the Valock made a gurgling laugh and leaped towards the man. The man, surprised by this turn of events, dropped the focus he was holding on the stone floor with a thud. The Valock leaped up and grabbed the man. “She wants you.” Before the man could grab his focus off the floor and work himself free of the creature’s limbs, a noise sounded through the room.
It was a horn, clear and strong. The sound was right, true, and spoke of the world around him. “Damn you, no!” the man shouted, struggling harder. Still, the Valock laughed and said “You come with me, she wants you.” The horn sounded again, and with a shudder and groan, the Valock shimmered and then vanished with the man in his grasp still struggling to move.
Cendan felt himself moving again, snapping back to the present. As the vision he saw faded, he saw one last thing—the man’s focus, on the floor. It was a key, large, black, and heavy, and it was the same one that Cendan had placed in the divot before.
Gasping for breath, Cendan stumbled and caught himself before he could fall over. Marcus, Sal, and Jasmine stood over him, looking simultaneously happy and worried.
“You okay, Cendan?” Sal asked. “You were frozen for a good ten minutes.”
Cendan nodded, saying nothing at first. He was still trying to collect his thoughts about the vision of the past he had seen. His eyes fell to the board in front of him, now mostly empty except for the four foci of the current Bridgefinders.
“I saw it—the night the EVA was wr
ecked. I saw the man who created it and his capture by a creature he called a ‘Valock.’” Cendan said slowly. “I was here, in this very room, on the night of the attack—or at least, I could see it somehow. The Valock came in, smoking and covered with liquids from the destruction of the Eva. The man came in yelling about it. He tried to capture it and immobilize it before sending it back.”
After taking a deep breath, he continued. “The Valock ran towards him and wrapped him up in its long arms and legs. It spoke to him, saying ‘She’ wanted the man. Oakheart tried to escape, but then I heard a horn. It seemed to cause the creature pain, but it didn’t let go of the man. The man tried to escape harder, but the horn sounded again, and the thing, the Valock, shifted away, the man still in its grasp.”
Marcus sat stunned for a minute. “We did it.” He put his head in his hands. “We never knew how they had captured him. The horn, it’s... a line of defense. Any creature that hears it twice is sent back to the Echo world. They knew it. They knew the Bridgefinders would use it. The Slyph counted on them using it. We sent him to their world, to endure whatever has happened to the poor man in the uncounted years since.”
Sal was confused. “I thought we couldn’t ever enter the Echo?”
“We can’t,” Marcus said. “But the records indicate a Maker could, sort of. And being enveloped in an Echo creature, and with the horn sounding twice, it makes sense. Horrifying sense.”
Jasmine knelt by Cendan, her hand light upon his shoulder. “Are you okay? Anything else you can remember?”
Cendan shook his head. “What’s a Valock?”
Jasmine grimaced. “Rare enough these days, the Slyph has moved on to other creatures, but Valock are related to goblins and elves. Some Bridgefinders think they were an early experiment of the Slyphs. Strong creatures, fast, and delight in destruction. It doesn’t surprise me that a Valock was the creature that broke the Eva.”
